Liu Zhenyun, born in 1958 in Yanjin, Henan Province, is one of the most famous writers in contemporary China. He graduated from the Chinese Department of Peking University and is now a professor at the School of Liberal Arts, Renmin University of China.

Liu has been awarded many prestigious prizes at home and abroad, including China’s top literary accolade, the Mao Dun Literature Award in 2011, and the Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters in 2018 from the Minster of Culture in France. Liu’s works have been translated into more than twenty languages, including English, French, German, Italian, Spanish and Swedish.